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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

MEP of the Week: Week 3

This week's MEP is one of those players that absolutely doesn't get the respect he deserves. Granted, when your division includes Greg Jennings, Donald Driver (Matt Forte, if they moved him over to the position permanently), it's hard to make a name for yourself at receiver, but Calvin Johnson is absolutely on fire. He's good at what he does -- and he looks good doing it, too.

Johnson, along with Pettigrew, definitely carried the Lions' O in Week 3 against the Vikings, averaging almost 10 yards per carry. Think about it this way: while rankings aren't everything in this game (as the 10-6 Super Bowl Champ Packers can tell you), the Lions currently share a 0-3 record with the Pack. One may clearly be the better team, but at the end of the day, if the Lions win just one more game than the Pack due to any number of reasons (injuries on Green Bay's end and Johnson on Detriot's are certainly a couple), they will be at the top of a division of which, for many many years, they clung to the bottom.

If anyone has seen How I Met Your Mother, you know about Barney's theory of "The Cheerleader Effect." Sometimes, a group of [in Barney's case, women, for my purposes, football players] are really attractive (I mean, hello, a sea of shoulder pads and eye black?), but then when you take each of them separately, not so much. I sort of think the inverse is happening with Calvin Johnson. He's a really great player surrounded by...a lot of not-really-that-great-players (but, yes, yes, I'll admit that seems to be changing), so it's easy to overlook how talented he really is.

But as any fantasy player (including Lucas, who happens to have him) will tell you, Johnson is an invaluable addition to any team -- fantasy or otherwise. I think he's a big reason behind the Lions' sudden pendulum swing, and maybe with his help the Lions can just secure themselves a Wild Card in this year's playoffs...